this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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Half-Life Was 95% Ready for Dreamcast (timemachiner.io)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by macstainless@discuss.tchncs.de to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Why? It was just a PC on the inside with a slimmed down Windows 2000 variant as the OS. Storage concerns aside, it was probably a very straightforward port, just rip out the Steam bindings, and it probably ran pretty immediately.

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 37 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Right, architecturally it was probably pretty simple. But the minimum system requirements for HL:2 versus the Xbox's hardware is pretty stark:

Half-Life 2 minimum requirements for PC:

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.00GHz
Memory: 512 MB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6100

Xbox System Specs:

CPU:  Intel Pentium III 733 MHz
Memory:  64 MB (shared with GPU)
Graphics:  Custom NVidia based on Geforce 3

Edit: Definitely meaning the original Xbox and not the 360. Was one of the last games I bought for the original and still have it :)

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.run 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

As a point of comparison, 360 has 512MB RAM. HL2 was targeting PCs comparable to PS3/360, but somehow they got it working on an Xbox.

[–] mihnt@lemmy.ca 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Makes you wonder what corners they cut to get it functional.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 points 10 months ago

So playable frame rate was the main corner cut.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 10 months ago

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[–] Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

The 00s Doom reboot shares a similar story, but for the 360!

[–] TheDrunkard@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

Noooo, it was not that simple. Search MVG hl2 port on YouTube and watch and see why the port is actually very impressive

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's not at all how porting a game works.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, this would make it much simpler. No translations, differing architectures, or OS bindings to struggle though. Asset and compilation tweaks, and controller bindings, and that's a large portion of the work.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You have zero idea what goes on when porting a game, do you? It's ok, not everyone does. Understanding you can learn is a good thing.

Watch this before replying, here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c66hfqw4SKc&pp=ygUHTVZHIGhsMg%3D%3D

[–] sorghum -4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Half life predates steam

[–] sploosh@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, but HL2 does not.